


Ignotia

by Aphoride



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: HPFT, F/F, Fighting Oppression, Flexible Relationships, Historiology, History, Ladies Loving Ladies, Letters and Diaries, Lies, M/M, Other Sides of Characters, Secrets, Soho, Unrequited Love, Victorian era, child!Gellert, epistolary fic, non-linear timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-25
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-16 06:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5817286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aphoride/pseuds/Aphoride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History is written by the victors, to their specifications. Not all of history fits within them.</p>
<p>These are those parts which do not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ignotia

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideraclara (angeloscastiel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeloscastiel/gifts).



Ignotia  
  
_Publisher’s note:_ As the author died before the project reached completion, we have left the letters and entries in the order she left them, unedited, out of respect to her memory.

* * *

_Foreword_  
  
They say history is always written by the victors, and it is, by and large, true – it gives us stories of kings earning rightful victories, ending wars against terrible enemies, of warlocks and witches tricking and trapping clumsy, hateful Muggles in order to survive; but these things, stories told to children and recounted by adults, are not the whole of it.  
  
Underneath the face of history – the smooth, easy-to-read appearance of it – it is much more difficult, much darker and more confusing.  
  
People are not what they seem, they change: twisting into things we do not quite recognise as the figures we were taught about; goodness becomes far too simple, far too pure a label to give them. In turn, evil becomes nicer, sweeter, more understandable than we thought – we see monsters become men, and we cannot hate them as we used to.  
  
Such is life – and history is life, if slanted.  
  
So I have compiled this: a collection of entries I wrote over the years, documenting the people I knew, all of them great, all of them coloured wrongly by history. These are personal recollections, memories of them as they were, before and while they became the legends they are now, and so I do not promise that they will offer insight into why they did what they did, or how they became who they became, or that they will be reliable – they are my perceptions of them, and I acknowledge freely that my thoughts then, whenever it was, are tinted by the way I view the world, the trait and habits I find irritating.  
  
I put it together because they deserve, all of them, to have these sides to their stories told, to have these sides to them shown to the world. If the world knows them, it should know them properly.

* * *

_13th March 1880_  
  
Behind a green velvet-covered door, in the middle of Soho, London, concealed nicely amongst the Muggle bars and shops and houses, is a cocktail bar and saloon, only for ladies. For ladies, in general, and ladies’ ladies in specific.  
  
It’s quiet and peaceful by day, empty except for the regulars and Rosamunde Smith, the owner, who sit in small, separate groups and converse, voices hushed, over tiny cups of coffee and slices of carrot cake. At night, at night it’s transformed: the vases of flowers remain, the furniture remains, but the people change, almost magically – the rooms are never full, exactly, but alive and busy, and it grows noisy quickly, the air filled with laughter and loud, shouting conversations, and the smacks of kisses, chaste and not.  
  
A place for outsiders, in its way, but it’s lovely, so very lovely – and she was too.  
  
I met her here – early today, in the middle of the day, completely unaware.  
  
She was with Elladora Black, tucked next to her, stirring a cup of tea with fine, pale fingers, her expression carefully, dutifully blank, but there was something in her eyes, a quick, darting look which made me wonder.  
  
Was she bored, there? Did she not like politics – for Elladora Black adored them, and hardly tolerated those who had no interest? Or was it simply something else, something more personal – tiredness, perhaps, or sadness, regret or guilt?  
  
In my corner, I watched for a little while, curious, before turning back to my work; the deadline for my article was in two days, and if it were good enough this could perhaps be my breakthrough, the one thing which would make me a name for myself. I did not think about her, did not wonder further, busy with scratching out words and reordering sentences, paragraphs, picking at my work, unsatisfied.  
  
Always, I thought, it could be better, it should be better. It must be better.  
  
Before I had noticed, hours had passed, and noon arrived, bringing with it the end of Elladora’s circle.  
  
“You are Bagshot? Bathilda Bagshot?” I looked up to see Elladora there, the girl I had been watched hovering just behind her shoulder, fastening a cloak over her shoulders, deep pink and lined at the neck with fur even in Spring.  
  
Elladora watched me, her gaze not moving, dark and piercing, hawk-like almost, and I felt suddenly so very young and small. Nine years difference is a lot when one is young, and in that moment I was aware of every year I lacked.  
  
“Yes,” I said, my voice creaking a little at the beginning. “I am.”  
  
She smiled a bit, “I enjoyed your last article in _Camelot_ , it was a refreshing change to the usual drivel they include. Your choice of topic was inspired.”  
  
“Thank you,” I murmured, feeling myself blush; in the background, the other girl waited, her eyes flickering between us.  
  
Our eyes met, briefly, and there was nothing there, but I still looked away.  
  
“I am looking forward to your next article,” Elladora continued, adjusting an olive green sleeve, smoothing out the lace over her wrist, gloved in white. “Please let Rosamunde know when and where it will be published, otherwise I fear I will miss it, and it would be a shame.”  
  
“Of course,” I replied, giving a nod, half-disbelieving, half-pleased. It felt like a victory, even if it was a small one, and I was hardly going to turn it down, poor and unknown as I was.  
  
“Excellent,” Elladora pronounced, turning on her heel and catching the other girl by the elbow, slipping her hand under and around so their arms were linked. Not intimate, but something about it felt so. “Now, Livia, darling, it has been too long since I saw you – four days is more than I could manage – perhaps…”  
  
I did not hear anything after that; the door swung shut behind them, Elladora’s sable cloak and dark, piled hair the last thing I saw. I did not see Livia’s back at all, not then.  
  
At the end of the afternoon, when the evening started to grow, I scribbled down the name of the journal, its next date of publication, and the title of the article – then decided – on a slip of parchment and left it on the bar under a compass for Rosamunde.  
  
I could not explain why, but all that evening, I wondered about the young, rose-cheeked Livia, and tall, stern Elladora Black, and just what their relationship was.

* * *

_21st May 1895_  
  
Dear Mr Dumbledore,  
  
I apologise if this letter seems quite out of the blue and impertinent – indeed, I know it is, and so I apologise for it. I had hoped to meet you in person, seeing as we are neighbours, but understandably that has not been possible; people can be so very unkind when misfortune befalls others – they have a tendency to forget it can just as easily befall them too.  
  
The reason for my writing to you was that I read your article in the last issue of _Transfiguration_ _Today_ , and I wished to congratulate you on it. Really, it was a masterful piece of work, and would have earned its place in the paper on merit alone had you been only a couple of years older – and so is even more astounding that you are younger than you ought to be to write so well on such a complicated subject.  
  
I would love to discuss the implications of non-transferred behavioural techniques in trans-species Transfiguration, if you would be so kind as to humour me on it – as it is a topic with moral and psychological aspects which are too often ignored by the mainstream academic community.  
  
I wish you well with your examinations in June – though judging by your paper, I doubt you will need any assistance! – and do give my best wishes to your mother and brother.  
  
Yours sincerely,  
  
Bathilda Bagshot

* * *

_10th March 1883_  
  
I have come to believe that a family cannot truly be a family if it does not have secrets – things which are not spoken of, outside of the home, things everyone knows but does not say except perhaps in anger. Like all good, hidden things, they sit just underneath the surface, out of sight but never of mind, and they wait to be revealed.  
  
For my family, one such secret was mine: that like all good lady academics do, I will not marry nor have children, and that, truthfully, I do not want to. Silk is much softer than marble, after all, and beauty appeals more to me than handsomeness.  
  
It was a joke, for so long, that we few had to endure: that we all must be, if we were not already married or engaged when we entered the field. We must be, because why else would be confine ourselves to learning, to the study of things, rather than households and children?  
  
Like all jokes, it contained truth.  
  
Today, though, it seemed all of that – the secrecy, the careful, placed way of talking about things not meant to be discussed – went out of the window; and I am pleased to say it was hardly my fault, but my sister’s.  
  
I will admit I have grown more frank as the years have passed – Elladora’s influence, no doubt, and Livia’s – but not to that degree.  
  
Here, I may be blunt, and so I shall: I have a great-nephew.  
  
It is strange to be so young and have a nephew, but then my family has never been simple, and now it has grown ever more complicated, and, accordingly, my sister grows ever more despairing. For her, happiness is neat and parcelled up, because life saw fit to hand her that kind of joy, that simplicity, and she wishes everyone else could have that too – she always forgets, my dear sister, that other people do not always need life to be so straight-forward.  
  
On this, though, we agree. Maxi has a son, now, and not a wife, but she has a husband, and the child will live with them, will grow with them, and will have a different father than he should. If God is gracious, Maxi may see his son, may perhaps know him even, but there will be no connection – Maxi will never have a son, in truth, beyond conception and blood.  
  
So, Claudia sobs on the letters she sends, because Maxi is not happy, even if he claims it is enough, and that is all she want, and this little boy, somewhere in Austria-Hungary, is a secret, though he has no knowledge of it, will likely not understand it for years, if he ever learns of the truth.  
  
Oh – I almost forgot, for future reference: his mother named him Gellért, after the saint. He was born in February, on the 4th, in the snow.  
  
Poor boy, for your whole existence to be a lie; I do wish him well.

* * *

_2nd April 1880_  
  
Something quite miraculous happened then, and, as with all wonderful things, it started so innocently: I was merely sitting in Rosamunde’s bar, already working on the next article – a longer, more intricate one, though about as daring and exciting as a Flobberworm – when I heard the rustle of skirts and a small, polite cough as someone sat down in front of me.  
  
Livia, wrapped today in a fine, sky blue cloak, embroidered with songbirds and flowers, roses and lilies in shades of red and pink and soft violet, was sitting there when I glanced up, looking at me quite expectantly and intently – so much so that I blushed, though I hadn’t the faintest idea of why, or what it was she seemed to be waiting for.  
  
Without a word, she delicately stripped off her gloves, white and edged with lace, and folded her hands on the table in front of her, and then, she just stared at me.  
  
It was really very queer – I had no idea what to do or say. Certainly, I had noticed her the few times our paths had crossed in the bar, though we had never spoken or even held gazes before, but she was political, fervent and bold, and I was none of those things. Her sitting with me seemed entirely a mistake.  
  
Now, I consider it a happy mistake, a sweet mistake, but then I was simply confounded.  
  
“I will take tea – Earl Grey with sugar and cream, not milk – and a small slice of lemon cake, no frosting,” she informed me, after a short period of silence.  
  
“I am very sorry,” I replied, making absolutely no move to do anything other than sit and write, my quill still in my hand. “But may I help you with something?”  
  
“Oh yes,” she nodded, and then – then, finally! – she smiled, looking so incredibly young and so very beautiful: pink, full lips parted, light licking a trail along the bottom one, and I blinked. The image stayed in my mind, though, and I hoped sincerely and foolishly that she could not know my thoughts. “But these things are always much better discussed over tea and cake, don’t you agree?”  
  
I ordered the cake and tea, and something for myself, because, really, what else could I do?  
  
Oh, God, there were a hundred and one other things I could do – I could have been brave and stubborn and refused, I could have put my foot down and held my head firm and insisted she order for herself – but I did not.  
  
To be so turned by merely a pretty smile, good gracious.  
  
“I have a proposition for you,” she began, business-like and secretive, all at once, her arms resting on the table, white and pale and bare, no jewellery for all her fine clothes. “You see, it is all very well for us to be sitting here and talking about the future, about plans for women, women like us, women not like us, men like us, and so on, but, as with everything, we must not forget where we came from. This, of course, is where you come in.”  
  
She sipped her tea, lemon cake untouched, and fluttered her eyelashes, long and light brown, with a pleased, brief smile.  
  
“I’m not quite sure what you want me to do,” I admitted lowly, not at all seeing ‘where I fitted in’ and more than a little perturbed at being included in ‘we’ and ‘us’, and ‘women like us’ – what did it all mean? What did she mean?  
  
Was she like me, or did she think I was like her? What was she like? Oh, so many questions it would be so rude to ask…  
  
“Isn’t it obvious?” she huffed, raising a slender eyebrow. I assume she was attempting incredulity, for her voice suggested it, but in truth, she merely looked arrogant and haughty. It reminded me quite forcibly of Elladora Black. “I would like for you to write about women’s history – on women, women who worked for women, anything at all, but about women. History remembers men only too well, but what about their wives, their sisters, their mothers who raised them? When talking of Flamel, what about his wife? Did she do nothing with her time? It is forgotten history, Ms Bagshot, and someone must write it!”  
  
I felt so naïve and so stupid, to not have thought of it, to not have realised that was what she meant; and so embarrassed for being lectured like a child by a girl no more than my own age, even if she was well-read and intelligent and so very passionate about her interests.  
  
To conclude, I am starting a new period of research – women’s and, perhaps, some other… is there even a name for it? Different history, for those who are different, perhaps, since Sapphic hardly covers it all, nor do the implications which come with Greek history really mean what I do.  
  
It has, I must stress, absolutely nothing to do with Livia Bonham, as she is called, nor how passionate she was, though I will admit she is very beautiful – never more so than when she is caught in the grip of her spirits, with a light flush rising on her cheeks and her eyes bright.  
  
I am a historian by trade, surely I should not simply ignore parts of history because it is the fashion to do so?

* * *

_29th September 1890_  
  
I have tried and tried, but it seems that no matter how hard I try, I will never quite escape her. Wretched woman, if such methods were not illegal, were not submerged in the Dark Arts, I would wonder if she somehow kept tabs on me – how else does she find me so easily?  
  
Perhaps she simply knows me too well, but I have no wish to dwell on that idea, however lovely it may be.  
  
The snake may look beautiful and strong and so very elegant; that does not mean it is not poisonous.  
  
“Bathilda?” I heard her voice, quiet almost, from behind me and fool that I am, I turned to see her, without thinking that that was always how these things started – a look and she will talk to you, talk to her and she will kiss you, kiss her and she will… well, exactly what happened to me.  
  
I turned, though, and she was there, wearing trousers instead of skirts, in smooth white material, clinging to her hips and thighs and calves, her long robes in sea-green swirling about her legs as she went, covering most, so that there were dips and flashes of leg. Tantalising, as she always had been. She was older, though the same: pink lipstick and dark, kohl-rimmed eyes, blonde hair in ringlets, half of it pinned up, the other half draped down around her shoulders.  
  
People were watching and staring, mothers hurrying their children past – scandal, their eyes said, and they barely knew the surface! – but she ignored them magnificently.  
  
“I wrote,” she said, and the words were breathy, but bland. “But you never replied.”  
  
“I have been busy,” I responded, keeping my voice even, my tone perfectly light and natural. I sounded less timid, more firm and wherever the strength came from, I do not know, but I am glad. “It must have slipped my mind.”  
  
“Nonsense!” she exclaimed, and that was a flash of her old spirit: loud and vibrant and childish. “Your mind misses nothing – it is quite vexing.”  
  
We fell silent, then, and I turned to walk, wanting nothing more than to get away; I had no desire to talk, not to her, not now, when so little time had passed, but in it everything had gone by. There were no words she could say which would take it back, which would rewind time – it was quite impossible, and that was where it needed to stay, on that I was certain.  
  
“May I walk with you?” she asked, suddenly, and there was a tremor in her voice, uncertain and delicate. She was always a wonderful actress, truly; cruder people might have suggested it should have been her career, that perhaps it was already her career, then, but Claudia has always claimed I am too kind-hearted, and in this I failed to be anything other than easily swayed. “Only to the Mall, mind, I am…”  
  
She trailed off, even as she stepped up beside me. Her eyes were down, her cheeks blushed, teeth biting gently at her lip, and the words she had not said, had not needed to say, hovered between us.  
  
I did not forgive her them, but neither did I resent her for them. In truth, I could not find it in me to care at all.  
  
Is that normal, to care so little about someone so soon after you cared about them so much?  
  
Oh, why does it matter what is normal – we were never normal, she and I.  
  
We walked, in silence – companionable, perhaps, but nothing more. I do not know what she felt, how it seemed to her, but to me it was awkward, in the way it is when two people meet and discover they have nothing to talk about beyond the pleasantries.  
  
“You are buying books again?” she asked, though it was less a question and more a statement. I did not glance at her, but I could hear the fondness in her voice. “Oh, Hilda, will you never stop? You’ll be living in a library before you turn forty, I swear!”  
  
I confess I had not realised she could see into the bags I was carrying, see the row of spines, all neatly lined up together, all the same height, though they differed in thickness: some were fat, squat books, others slim and almost fragile-looking.  
  
They were, though, all children’s books – or, if not, books I already owned. Second copies; each edition carefully chosen and hunted down.  
  
“These are for my nephew,” I told her, entirely without preamble, and even now I cannot think why I volunteered the information. Wanting to prove myself to her again, remind her that I am the same as she, that she did not have me wrong, perhaps, but I do not think I ever knew. “He is seven and whizzing through those his father owns already.”  
  
“I see,” Livia nodded, a blonde curl bouncing on her shoulders. “Would you tell me about him? Just something – you seem to like him, and, well, I want to see you smile again.”  
  
I was startled, more startled than I could say, though I still could not fathom why I was continuing to walk with her, and it seemed like such a simple request – so poetic, so classical, in way: one last smile.  
  
“He is very clever, and sure to be very talented – my sister wrote that the other day, when he was visiting with his father, he turned all the windows of their house into stained glass when he laughed,” I recalled, and the smile came easily; she watched me, but I was barely seeing her. “He has curls like yours – long enough to be tied back – but his eyes are much darker; and he sulks endlessly if refused things he wants, except for his father. He demands everything, but he is very sweet – he is much more affectionate than he admits to, though I suspect it is the same for all children.”  
  
“Well,” Livia breathed, and our eyes met then, long and hard and I was surprised to see she looked upset. “This is me.”  
  
And then, of course, she left.

* * *

_5th October 1896_  
  
On the mantelpiece in the small living room, plain, cracked sandstone, right next to the grate, sat a blue china vase, forget-me-nots winding all around it, each one painted perfectly, the light catching the polish making them shine. It was a present, Kendra had said once when I asked, from Percival’s sister Honoria, when Albus had been born.  
  
Expensive, but nothing would be spared to celebrate the child they had thought would never come, Honora had supposedly told her.  
  
Kind words, and a kind gesture, but they had amounted to nothing once Percival had been gaoled, sent away for life for a father’s wrath – the ties of family entirely forgotten in favour of her own survival against the rumours which still abounded in the weeks and months following.  
  
They were filled with red chrysanthemum blossoms that day, the bright colour of the flowers stark against the blue; Ariana had picked them herself from the garden, arranging them slowly and delicately in the vase with patience a saint would envy.  
  
Kendra herself is remarkable: she looks confined in the skirts and sleeves of English dress, her hair pinned sharply to her head, and yet she bears everything with so much grace and ease. It is something to aspire to, solemn and steady and calm – but her mind is quick, much quicker than most would believe. She is proud and secretive, but it is no wonder – she is not from this land, but America, and her husband is gone, her daughter damaged, and her sons growing.  
  
“How are the boys – it is hard to believe Albus will be taking his exams next year!” I asked, once Kendra had checked Ariana was comfortable in the drawing room (it was called that, though in truth it filled a piano, an armchair and a table and hardly anything else), and sunk into the sofa opposite.  
  
“They grow so fast,” Kendra mused, her hands clasped around the teacup in her lap. “They are both well – Aberforth wishes to come home, and Albus wishes to remain there, though they both write less frequently than they did.”  
  
“Children do that as they grow up, I am told,” I replied softly, entirely unsure of how exactly to sympathise. I have no children of my own, after all – Gellert is the closest I will get, and even he is hardly a child now, even if only in his own considerations. “My nephew’s boy writes only when commanded to and never else; my nephew does not mind a jot, but my sister objects quite strongly.”  
  
We had talked often about the boys – about Albus and Aberforth and Gellert – and slowly, bit by bit, Kendra had started to open up, revealing little things, hints and suggestions of her own past, her own life back in America, long before Percival.  
  
“Albus is quite remarkable,” I mused later that afternoon, the tea long gone cold in the pot, but neither of us moved. Such days were rare, ones where we could sit and talk for hours on end; often, she would ask me about magic, about theories and techniques, and so I would explain, or we would talk about politics, about difference, and my own passions, dulled over time, would be stoked by her frankness on the subject.  
  
Men look at me, she said a few days ago, they look at me and they see me as different – not as a woman, not as the same as their wives. I am different, and yet I am not, except to them.  
  
Oh, the things history forgets! History remembers Percival Dumbledore, the man who murdered three Muggle boys because he could, but it will forget Kendra, who weathered it all and stood firm, who raised her children and kept her home and found ways, endless ways, to make money to maintain them as best she could. A shame because, in truth, she is the more fascinating of the pair – but history does not care about fascination, but about action.  
  
A shame, truly.  
  
She had smiled, then, when I mentioned Albus, and it lit her up entirely – so much so that I could not help but smile with her, perhaps for her, because don’t mothers live through their children? Successes and failures all are shared between parents and children (or ought to be, in any case), and Kendra’s story was perhaps best told through her children, or she thought it should be.  
  
“He is,” she agreed. “He has always been – even as a child he was ahead. I ran out of stories to tell him, so I told him histories.”  
  
I was ahead of myself, then, at the end: I asked her if she would write them for me, the histories of her people, of her family and her friends, so that I could share them, if she wished, but learn from them, at least. Old passions do die hard, and for all Livia gave me and took from me and did not give, she did give me that.  
  
She smiled, small and wan, and apologised. Her histories were not to be written, she told me, and there was a sigh in her voice I had not heard before, a longing to be back where she was not different, though the offer was kind.  
  
It was a gentle refusal, but I feel I have upset something all the same – and it is even the more difficult because of the softness of her response.  
  
Livia would have hated her; Elladora Black would have scorned her; and I, I can never quite know what to make of her, but perhaps, perhaps that kind of mystery is something she wants?

* * *

_5th April 1880_  
  
Dear Ms Bagshot,  
  
I am writing to you in order to extend to you an invitation to join myself and Livia Bonham, with whom I believe you are already acquainted, at our next gathering – I believe you already know where it is?  
  
I was most favourably impressed by your last article – and I do thank you for passing the information onto Rosamunde, it was such a help! – in particular the point you raised about the immortality of persons being assured by history, though it is unreal, and thus how it takes time to truly understand those who came before us because we do not have complete information about them. If we cannot meet them, how can we really know them? After all, even in meeting a person, we do not necessarily know of all facets of their life or personality; hidden traits are quite a common thing.  
  
History is a most fascinating subject, and I would dearly love to talk to you more about it – I suspect that we will become firm friends very soon after, for we are quite unlikely to disagree!  
  
Livia has also informed me of the project you are currently starting, and I must insist on putting at your disposal any connections or abilities I have to acquire any texts you need, if you cannot get hold of them. I have a great deal of literature in my family home, a lot of it rare and old, if not unique, and I have connections to sellers and collectors on the continent, particularly those who quietly gather tomes discussing the very topic you are interested in researching.  
  
Do not hesitate to give me an owl – this is a topic of great significance and will be of great benefit to society; I would be amiss if I did not want to help in any way I can.  
  
Yours, in friendship,  
  
Elladora Ursula Black

* * *

_28th November 1888_  
  
The air was clear and crisp when I arrived in Germany, frost sprinkled over the grass, and when I opened the door it was to the smell of freshly-baked bread and Claudia’s smile, the streaks of grey in her hair matching the silver around her neck and wrists.  
  
“Come in,” she gestured, hugging me quickly but tightly. “We are in the drawing room – there’s tea and coffee already prepared, so go on through.”  
  
It was a long walk through to the drawing room – Claudia and Anselm had done well for themselves over the years, and they had poured their success into their house, painting rooms and decorating them with all sorts of little treasures. Five rooms in the house; one for them, one for guests, and three for the children they meant to have: two boys and a girl.  
  
In the end, it was only Maxi, and the rest went unused, gathering dust.  
  
I reached the drawing room quickly enough, though, and stepped through the open door, receiving a smile and a nod from Anselm, and a tired, exasperated one from Maxi. On the floor, cross-legged and glaring, was the child, Gellert, and he took one look at me – a look filled with all the pent-up anger of a child – and decided he was not interested.  
  
“Tante,” Maxi pressed a kiss to each of my cheeks. “Let me introduce you to Gellert. Gellert, this is your great-aunt, your grandmother’s sister; say hello.”  
  
The switch from English to German was smooth, almost jarring in that it did not exist, and I smiled at the child, cherubic with his blonde curls and blue eyes, though the effect was spoilt by how he was pouting.  
  
“Nein,” Gellert pronounced, the word perfectly German, hardly a trace of his Hungarian accent in it, and I could only smile. There had always been something so sweet about the stubbornness of a child – something I suspect I only found so because I had never had my own.  
  
“Do not make him talk to me,” I scolded Maxi, taking my time to find the German and saying the words slowly, clearly. I did not want to patronise the boy, but I wanted less to speak too quickly and leave him floundering. “I have no wish to interrupt him if he is busy.”  
  
Gellert smirked smugly up at his father, but it was only fleeting – a second later he was pouting again and Maxi only sighed, looking at him fondly, but it was a sad fondness.  
  
Really, he was an adorable boy, dressed from head to toe in white-and-navy: his trousers in navy and his stockings white, the robes over his shirt lined at the close over his chest by brass buttons. A miniature sailor, though if he’d ever had a hat, it had clearly been long forgotten – rather, I suspected Maxi had not thought it worth the fight to put it on.  
  
“He has been upset since he left,” Maxi told me quietly a little while later. Gellert was absorbed in a book; a history of Attila the Hun, it seemed from the cover (though I could not read it, written as it was in Hungarian), and blissfully unaware of our watching him. When reading, he seemed more relaxed, more at home. “I cannot fault him it – I have upended his entire world, why should he be happy?”  
  
Maxi did not usually talk about his emotions, about anything remotely personal, even then, even as a child, and when he did it was to his mother, not to me – but glancing at him, I could not help but think that Claudia would not quite know what to do with this, with a child who is loved but does not want to be loved, who is causing her child pain in turn.  
  
“I am sorry,” I replied, pressing my hand on his shoulder. “It is so difficult to know what to do.”  
  
“Could you –,” Maxi began hesitantly. “Talk to him? He likes history – at least, he reads a lot of it, so I presume he does, and it is your area…”  
  
I had not quite been expecting that, but we were always of an age, he and I, only two years apart, even if nephew and aunt by blood, and seeing him upset and so desperate to make some kind of headway with his son – well, how could I refuse? Cruelty has never been a trait I have had, even in times when it would have been deserved; a fault, if not a very severe one, perhaps.  
  
So, I went and sat by Gellert, and in time, he looked up and scowled at me, as though I had interrupted his reading simply by sitting next to him. He sat and stared and glared, and so I sat and stared back, and eventually he looked away, shifting uncomfortably.  
  
“Do you like history?” I asked him, and he stubbornly kept looking at the floor, dragging his fingers through the fur of the rug he was sat on, twisting it to and fro.  
  
He was only five years old, but good lord he could ignore people quite perfectly even then.  
  
“Attila was very successful,” I commented, glancing at the name written in peeling gold letters across the cover of the book next to him. “He made Emperors afraid. Other kings did similar things – conquering nations and tribes, making other kings and rulers bow to them, defeating them in battle. Would you like to hear about them?”  
  
He did not move, his hand stilling in the fur of the rug and he bit his lip, eyes lowered; apparently, the lure of a good story was almost too much.  
  
“My favourite,” I told him, half-conspiratorially. “Is Alexander, king of the Macedons. He fought all of his father’s enemies and Greece and defeated them before he was twenty-one, and then he went on to conquer the empire of Persia, then the greatest known kingdom, before he was thirty-five. He was handsome and brilliant – with blonde curls and blue eyes like you, too.”  
  
Slowly, almost reluctantly, he dragged his gaze up to mine, deep blue eyes turning from defiant to expectant as he clasped his hands over his crossed legs and waited, silent and patient for the story to begin.  
  
For the whole evening, he did not say another word, in Hungarian or German, but when he and Maxi left, at the end, yawning and blinking, almost swaying on his feet, he allowed Maxi to pick him up without any fuss, curling up with his head on his father’s chest and falling halfway to sleep in seconds.  
  
Nota Bene: I must find a child-friendly version of Alexander’s early years to send to Gellert for Christmas. Or perhaps a copy of the Attila biography in German?

* * *

_26th January 1882_  
  
There was a beaming smile on her face when she spotted me, lighting up her entire being, and she practically flew over to my table, trailing perfume and a long silk scarf in soft peach. On her head, her hat bobbed up and down, a stray curl falling across her forehead as she stopped in front of me.  
  
“Oh, it is quite marvellous!” she gushed, sitting down without any invitation, leaning across the table to talk to me. “Quite, quite marvellous! You are a genius, indeed!”  
  
“Thank you,” I murmured in reply, finding myself blushing and not at all sure how to respond – while I had been praised before, my abilities both criticised and lauded by other academics within the field, it had never meant so much.  
  
For some reason, I wanted to impress her so very much – I wanted to hear her breathe ‘you’re marvellous’ again, see her smile at me again and again.  
  
In the past there had been girls I had admired, girls I had wondered what it would feel like, taste like, be like to kiss and to touch, to openly appreciate; now, there was Livia and it was ten times as strong. It was easy enough to explain, but much harder to deal with in practice: I did not know what to say, how to act, when to smile, because smiling at everything was not possible and just foolish.  
  
I am not blessed with social skills and so I hid it all behind absent nods and quiet, mumbling contributions to conversation.  
  
“We simply must celebrate – this is a huge victory, not just for us, but for everyone who has ever been different, in any way!” Livia enthused, and so I found myself lingering on in the bar, long after I normally went home, when the crowd changed and the rowdy, ladies’ girls arrived, with their beer and trousers and short, cropped hair.  
  
They were wild and radical, and I had never felt simultaneously more out of place in my life and more at home.  
  
Livia began introducing me to people, friends of hers, members of Elladora’s inimitable circle, and I found glasses of wine being pushed into my hand, kisses being pressed to my cheeks and mouth as they all seemed so happy to see me, just as eager as Livia to congratulate me – and all I had done to gain this was to write an article, nothing more.  
  
It was absurd, absurd and yet so wonderful!  
  
Through it all, Livia watched me, smiling, her hand tucked securely in the crook of my elbow, whispering names in my ear, her breath spilling along my neck, distracting and dazzling in equal measure. Perhaps she saw something of this because, when the others started to break away, leaving us alone, she pressed herself firmly against my side, sliding so she was right in front of me, hip to hip and chest to chest.  
  
She smiled once more, and then kissed me.  
  
Outside, this would be dangerous, but here it was normal, and it was a lovely, exciting normal – she nipped gently at my lower lip, cupping my face with one hand, and I found it so easy to slip my arms around the curve of her waist, to hold her close, reaching up to spin her curls through my fingers. She was soft and warm, and it was so very simple to focus on her, only on her, when she murmured my name and pressed her mouth to mine, open and wanting and willing.  
  
That night, we fled through the streets of London back to my flat, drunk on wine and success and excitement, giggling like schoolgirls, hand in hand, and I found that I was not so timid as I had always thought.

* * *

_11th August 1887_  
  
Today, the journal refused my article; it is the first time I have been refused, it will undoubtedly not be the last, and I find myself entirely at a loss of what to do now. I am angry and disappointed, because it is hardly different from what I had done before, from previous areas of research, previous papers they have published – but this, apparently, this is too far.  
  
I will admit, it is scandalous if one assumes such things are – but, really, their choice of scandal is quite particular!  
  
Proposing that the fields of Arithmancy, Ancient Runes and Charms have long been fields which have attracted women who seek to reaffirm their femininity by pursuing subject commonly held to be more female-oriented, and that as such, they also appeal to men who perhaps do not fit the stereotypical mould – usually through their inclinations – is, it seems, a step too far in discussion of those historical figures who have served those fields and their own personal histories.  
  
That Felix Summerbee infamously lived most of his life in near-constant company of a young man five years his junior who had enough wealth and land to fund his experiments with Charms has been entirely forbidden to mention, though it is essential to know in order to understand why he invented the charm he did, and why, when he first invented it, he could not publish it in any respectable journal.  
  
Events within academia are informed by so much of our personal lives; it cannot be ignored! To ignore it is to misunderstand history, to rewrite it, even!  
  
Perhaps it is for the best that they have not seen my second article. If discussion of men’s affections for other men shocked them so, I dread to think would state they would be in when asked to approach the idea of women’s love for other women! On the other hand, it is possible it is a shame – for the shock might have caused retirement entirely, or brought on illness!  
  
Good gracious, what have I become? Wishing illness upon another simply because they refuse to admit to the truth?  
  
I have never been cruel, and yet here I am, wishing in no uncertain terms for editors of a journal to be struck down simply because they cannot see things the way I do. I have changed, I must admit, and I do not think I can be comfortable with it; it sits wrongly in my stomach and my chest. For all Livia’s words, I cannot quite bring myself to be that zealous.  
  
I will find somewhere and someone to publish them, both articles; I will not give up on that. But I will give up on cruelty; there is enough in the world already, and kindness is a powerful weapon when used correctly.  
  
If I save the papers, all the research I am doing, perhaps in time, I could write a book – and if I am famous enough, no one will think twice before approving it; names sell, and scandalous titles, scandalous subjects sell all the better.  
  
It would be my magnum opus, I think.

* * *

_3rd August 1898_  
  
“Tante Hilda?” Gellert’s voice, quiet and furtive, slipped over to me, and I looked up from my papers – research papers, endless notes on a biography of Alberta Tootshill, the first female All England Duelling Champion – to see him, still sitting almost at the other end of the room, tucked in an armchair, his head bent over his book.  
  
“There is no one around,” I reminded him, amused by the secretive act – he was not normally sly at all, quite well aware that between his grandparents, his father and I, we were all entirely wrapped around his little finger, prodigal son and only son that he was. “You may speak as freely as you like.”  
  
Still, he did not look up – I found it very strange, not at all like him, but young men are a strange breed I know nothing about, so what could I say or suspect?  
  
“I was wondering,” he hesitated, though his voice was steady and calm, and I was more and more intrigued by the minute. “If you would lend me _Transfiguration Today_?”  
  
In his hands, the book was open, frozen on a particular page – likely he had not read any of the previous pages, either, too busy ordering the words in English, twisting and turning the phrases until they were as he thought they should be.  
  
“Of course, if you would like,” I responded slowly, frowning. What on earth could he possibly want with that? He had never displayed an interest in Transfiguration before – not beyond the average amount, at any rate. Had it been Charms or Alchemy, or, heavens forbid, the Dark Arts and their Defences, it would have been little surprise – he excelled in them all, with his professors at Durmstrang complaining in the main part that they could not simply move him up a year where he would be less of a nuisance to the other students. “Is there a particular issue you have in mind?”  
  
“Ja,” he said with a nod, brushing his hair over his shoulder and finally looking up at me, something stubborn and determined in his eyes. For a moment, it was like seeing him as a child again – stubborn and pouting and sulky, only fiercer, the bubbling, boiling tantrum of a child hardened and stoked into fire. “Anything where Albus Dumbledore had written.”  
  
The English was not perfect, but the sentiment was clear – and I blinked, staring a little.  
  
Good lord, I confess I found myself wondering what Kendra would make of it, what Albus himself would make of it if he knew. Being name-dropped as a scholar at barely seventeen!  
  
“He won the Alchemy medal,” Gellert blurted, and if there was a blush on his cheeks it was light and well-hidden by his French pink robes. “In Cairo, at the Conference. He was sixteen.”  
  
“He is a very clever young man, not unlike yourself,” I commented, finding the whole situation quite bizarre, with no real idea of what to say or how to handle it. What was the purpose of it all, the journals and the mention of the medal, and the age at which Albus had won it?  
  
“I want to beat him,” Gellert declared, his voice low, and there was a spark in his eyes, competitive, hungry but also utterly, completely delighted. He had found a competitor, someone his age who could match him, with whom he could squabble over prizes and titles. “I want to write to him and tell him how he is wrong.”  
  
Dear boy, he could be really quite sweet when he did not mean to be; delight made him glow, at that point somewhere between cherubic infant and handsome young man: it was clear he longed to be equalled, that whatever his intentions of beating Albus were, there was a want for debate, for discussion of the type you could only have with a person who matched you.  
  
He and Albus both, in truth, had outgrown their institutions; the examinations were the only reason they stayed.  
  
Later, I thought back on it – on that flush when he mentioned Albus, the way he had been so intent on writing, on contacting him to tell him he was wrong, but he must write directly, not through an article as scholars did – and wondered. I wondered if perhaps there was something more than a desire for competitiveness, if there was not a certain element of admiration tucked into it – there had been a picture with the article in the Alchemy journal, I knew (I had taken it to Kendra and she had cut it out carefully and tucked it in Percival’s old desk, with his O.W.L. certificates), and he had looked handsome enough then, blue eyes and red hair and slanting cheekbones.  
  
What harm would it do, I thought, to simply send him the journals? Fascination was not a bad thing for a young man to experience; and Albus was open-minded enough not to be disturbed, in the unlikely event he discovered it.  
  
No, I thought, they would be good for each other, if ever they met.

* * *

_1st May 1890_  
  
I went to Rosamunde’s today, for what I suspect will be my last visit. I am not sure how I feel, only that I do, and I wish I did not.  
  
Was I wrong to believe it was only me, that perhaps it could be only me, that I ever had a chance? Was it foolish or naïve, or both of those things combined and then more? Or was it simply fortuitous for me to discover it now, the deception she played, when things were not too far, I was not too gone, and she would not mind to see it all end?  
  
It was a beautiful day today – a perfect Spring morning: the daffodils and blossom were all in their last throes of life, bright and colourful, reflected against the blue of the sky ahead in the puddles of rainwater lingering in the cracks on the pavement. Birds sang in the trees, leaves crowding their branches, and I felt light, happy and victorious.  
  
I had found the publisher – the one who would publish my books, once they were done, from the history of Hogwarts to the history of difference, women’s and men’s, and everything in between. There was no contract, not yet, but he had agreed, had seen drafts and exclaimed over them, poured over them and still wanted to publish.  
  
He had said they were important histories to make known, important stories to be told, and I had never smiled so much in a long time; so much so that we had overrun considerably: the half-an-hour meeting extending into two-and-a-half, with a break for tea and a celebratory lick of champagne.  
  
Rosamunde’s was open, as usual, and I stepped inside, searching immediately, as always, for Livia, for the bright chartreuse of her most recent coat, or the crimson of her customary hat.  
  
She was there, and so was Elladora, sitting side-by-side and they had done so many times, and as I watched, they exchanged smiles, exchanged touches – brief brushes of fingertips against skin – and then a kiss, single and sweet.  
  
I wondered for so long over what they were, what it meant that they were in the same group, that Livia always sat on Elladora’s left hand side, that it had been to Elladora Livia had told everything, and now, now I knew beyond doubt.  
  
I turned, and I left.

* * *

_Addendum_  
  
Livia Bonham changed me, changed my life. Without her, this collection of papers would not exist. Without her, much of my work – though it is, I regret, not as popular as _Hogwarts: A History_ , and likely twice as important – would never have been written, for I would never have had the idea.   
  
Without her, I would never have thought to wonder about Gellert, to wonder about Kendra, about their stories and how they formed their personalities, their choices and, ultimately, everything they influenced.   
  
I hope this collection shows some of the secrets they kept, all of those mentioned in this, including myself, and why they did what they did, how they became the people they did. Secrets have a profound effect on us all, as individuals and as societies; it would be amiss to forget them, and not to talk about them now.  
  
There is comparatively little about either of the latter two because Gellert certainly did not confide in me anything personal, nor did he do so to others; his loneliness as a child carried through with him to almost adulthood, and I suspect beyond. With regards fascination, other quills will pen speculation about his relationships, his friendships, and if he ever fell in love. I choose not to listen to rumours, no matter who claims one as truth, and so it remains up for debate in this.  
  
As for Kendra, she told me once that she did not wish the histories of her people written, and so I have taken the same in respect to her, and, to an extent, her sons and daughter, in whatever capacity they are mentioned and their secrets and histories are dealt with.  
  
For herself, Livia made her name in politics; she was voted to the Wizengamot in 1902, and became a highly respected member, known for her out-spoken opinions, modern thinking and her outrageous choices of dress. She and Elladora

* * *

**A/N:**    
  
Translations:   
  
nein - no  
  
ja - yes  
  
tante - aunt  
  
ignotia - the unknown


End file.
